I could care less about assumed straight-laced people going about telling others how to be. I think there is no morality in that we all have a definition of it for ourselves, if at all. An honest man who steals is often better than a dishonest man who does the same.

I could care less about assumed straight-laced people going about telling others how to be. I think there is no morality in that we all have a definition of it for ourselves, if at all. An honest man who steals is often better than a dishonest man who does the same.

It is a tool for the organized religious fundamentalists to entrench both themselves and their dogmas, but not for the science of moral landscape.

While that is true to a point, NE1469, our individual conceptions of morality cannot be viewed in a vacuum. A person's morality is shaped by his experiences, society, and upbringing. While a disregard for this things would tend to suggest that each person's morality is separate, this is unfortunately not the case. Experiences, society, and upbringing overlap between individuals, resulting in similar overlaps in those individual's moralities. Because of this, it is not entirely pointless, and even sometimes useful, to attempt to derive common elements from such overlapping moralities.

While that is true to a point, NE1469, our individual conceptions of morality cannot be viewed in a vacuum. A person's morality is shaped by his experiences, society, and upbringing. While a disregard for this things would tend to suggest that each person's morality is separate, this is unfortunately not the case. Experiences, society, and upbringing overlap between individuals, resulting in similar overlaps in those individual's moralities. Because of this, it is not entirely pointless, and even sometimes useful, to attempt to derive common elements from such overlapping moralities.

Then the challenge is how we can arrive at an objective morality, and I think the Eastern philosophy of stepping away from self-righteousness has something to offer.